Donegal on slippery slope?

[ck]

Their manager gets a job with Celtic, they don't win a game in the McKenna Cup and they get relegated in NFL. Spin it whatever way you like, these are the facts.
They now face Tyrone at home in the Ulster Cship. Lose that and the year couldn't get any worse. Or will Jimmy turn it around and get things back on track? No-one will rule them out, but no-one can deny that the year has been a disaster so far.

[trileacman]

Jim blaming the ref as well for yesterday's defeat. Sign of a manager feeling the pressure.

[Crete Boom]

 It's a bit early to dance on their graves yet lads!
The facts above might be true but facts don't tell the whole story. My own county finished runner up in the All Ireland in 2004 and 2006 but would you say unequivocally they were the second best team in Ireland in those years!Also if the league is such a great indicator of championship form we were runners up in 2007 and 2010 and went nowhere that year with Donegal beating us in 2007 and also failing in that years championship.
Donegal had to give the front line players a rest in the McKenna cup after the herculean effort put in to win the All Ireland over the last two years so I'm not surprised they wrote it off this year.
They might have been relegated but they only finished one point less off than their total in the league from 2012 and Jimmy did say he's only focused on the 26Th of May so personally I'll postpone judging them till after the outcome of the Tyrone match.
What we did find out is that they have a shallow enough pool of top players like 99% of the other counties and a couple of key injuries could derail them this year but they also managed to blood a few new players like Ryan McHugh and Ross Werrity which could bolster their bench for the summer.

[seafoid]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUNVjsNoE80

Jim McGuinness is so driven. It is almost not Irish how driven he is. That laser focus.
The attention to detail.

They won't be happy with the one all Ireland.
They only have 2 and now is the time to add to that. They won't want to follow Armagh and Derry
back to nowhere without doing more damage. 

It's April-  I definitely wouldn't write them off yet.
Very dangerous business.

[Walter Cronc]

Jim blaming the ref as well for yesterday's defeat. Sign of a manager feeling the pressure.

Jim said he has never made a comment about Refs and won't begin now. Said the people who came can have their opinion. I'd hardly call that blaming the ref!

Also the foul was committed a yard outside the square!

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

I reckon Donegal will make the All-Ireland semi after exiting to Tyrone in the Ulster Championship.

[rosnarun]

I think the point is though that unless donegal Put in a 'Manic herculean' effort they dont have a whole lot to back it up with . and it is very doubtful they reach the same level of Intensty angain esp at the press of a button like mcguiness thinks they can.
winning an AIF buys time but aprt from kerry no one has been able to win  back to back Titles in decades and as they will have to use more or less the same 15 again i can see Donegal being any different

[rodney trotter]

They haven't got a bench that the likes of Dublin have, Bar Michael Murphy missing the first round game last year against Cavan they had their strongest team available. Lacey missed the whole League this year, so he will be coming back into the team.

Still I think they will beat Tyrone with home advantage, 7 weeks to prepare for that.

[J70]

Stupid f**king thread.

They lost all their McKenna Cup.games last year too. They survived on five points last year. There was one point separating semis and relegation this year. And reports say Rory Kavanagh should have had a penalty when fouled clean through on goal towards the end of yesterday's game. Them's the breaks, but if he had got it and Donegal had gone on to win by four or five points and made the semis, would CK be triumphantly sticking the boot into Donegal, yet again?

[J70]

And another thing... while history shows that teams, outside of Kerry at least, just don't have the effortless talent to carry them through an understandable drop-off in intensity to put back-to-back championship runs together, quite a few people on this board were confidently dismissing Donegal this time last year as lacking enough talent to make up for the fact that they would not be able to repeat the supposed manic intensity and preparation they put in in 2011!

[rodney trotter]

McFadden was supposedly taken off early yesterday after being wrecked from the Championship like training  Donegal were doing recently? Fair to say Donegal are fully focused on the Tyrone game.

I think McGuinness said before the league he wasn't going to overly concerned about the League form, just to retain Ulster and Sam.

http://www.hoganstand.com/ArticleForm.aspx?ID=189469

[ballinaman]

I reckon Donegal will make the All-Ireland semi after exiting to Tyrone in the Ulster Championship.

Agree.

[SLIGONIAN]

Jees ck we have enough problems of our own than to be even thinking of donegal. IMO Donegal are not near finished and will have plenty of success over the next few yrs. McGuinness is a genuis and i would love to get meet hime some day, he is totally right focusing on championship and his quotes after yday match were bang on. Sorry for ref yday btw but its kinda karmic when you look at what jimmy white did to us in 2010.

[J70]

Every team gets shafted or aided by bad refs. Don't think many Donegal people are overly concerned about Duffy's decisions yesterday. I just don't understand the rush to dismiss us when our year, so far, has been identical to last year, with the exception that five points didn't save us this time. If we'd gone down last year on five points, instead of sneaking survival, does that mean  we would not have won Ulster and the AI?

[Captain Obvious]

Every team gets shafted or aided by bad refs. Don't think many Donegal people are overly concerned about Duffy's decisions yesterday. I just don't understand the rush to dismiss us when our year, so far, has been identical to last year, with the exception that five points didn't save us this time. If we'd gone down last year on five points, instead of sneaking survival, does that mean  we would not have won Ulster and the AI?

A three or four win would have gotten Donegal a semi final match. It's hard to read anything into your relegation. Still need to keep McFadden,Murphy fit or the scores will dry up.